To combat the rising financial fraud, the Indian government has allocated 160 special series of mobile phones exclusively for transaction and service-related voice calls from financial institutions. This measure is intended to help citizens more easily identify legitimate calls from banks, insurance providers and other financial institutions and thus protect themselves from fraud.
This initiative, led by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), involves collaboration with key financial regulators including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
By introducing these special phone series, the authorities want to create a clear distinction between genuine calls from financial institutions and calls from fraudsters.
In addition, the Ministry of Communications announced the ongoing migration of the existing 140 phone numbers used for promotional calls to a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. This move, coupled with stricter digital consent protocols, is expected to significantly reduce the number of spam calls from 10-digit numbers.
At a meeting with regulators, financial institutions and telecommunications service providers, all parties stressed the importance of joint efforts to curb spam calls and protect consumers from financial fraud.
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